These days, companies in Jeffersonville, Indiana depend on reliable Internet access as the lifeblood of their company. All companies, large and small, need fast and reliable Internet access.
In the coming months and years, we’ll become increasingly reliant on our access to the net.
From email messaging to information sharing, e-commerce to archiving data, and voice over IP to video chat, the internet is omnipresent. What do you need? Maybe a cable modem is a sufficient solution. Metro Ethernet? Gigabit Internet? Does your business in Jeffersonville need one of these: 10 Meg access to The net, a 100 Meg Internet access point, a 50 meg circuit or a 5 meg circuit?
Your business must assess its real needs. This must be done before an appropriate service can be chosen. Will web surfing and email be your primary use of the internet? Is it used for real-time data connection with cloud servers? You may be hosting the data in Jeffersonville, Indiana and remote sites rely on this.
Have you thought about what happens to your organization if your high-speed Internet is interrupted by an outage? What about the downtime that results? Can your company afford that? Is uptime essential to the success of your company? Before you buy anything, you must answer these questions.
High-speed access to The web is required by all businesses. An analysis of the costs and benefits should be done prior to choosing the broadband internet that is correct for your business. Many service providers toss out terms such as:
… you must not lose sight of the real issue, which is understanding what technical solutions best meet your needs.
Workers for most companies in Jeffersonville have some need to access the net during the course of their job. Whether it is for business research, to order supplies or to use third-party applications, the net is required.
The number of workers you have may be the factor that drives your decision. If you have a handful of employees, a 5 or 10 Meg Internet circuit may be sufficient. If you have many employees who need to use the net at the same time, you may do better with more.
If your employees are merely accessing an intranet system with limited graphics and video, your need for high-speed Internet may be reduced. However, employees who must often download documents, images and videos, need that speed.
Do you backup information? Simultaneous connections to the web, which you need in order to sync your backup data, require support. If you conduct remote backups from every workstation, which you definitely should, this will be important.
Are you using a service such as DropBox or Google drive to share files? As a file is saved, it is pushed to the cloud and then synced back to other people’s computers. Running all your services properly, including sharing files, requires that you have the right amount of bandwidth.
You may consider high-speed organization Internet access if you location warrants it. Gigabit Internet and Metro Ethernet may be viable options for you. “Lit buildings” that have already been wired by a carrier, are commonly the site for these. The ease and affordability of adding high-speed Internet to your office may surprise you.
While it may be the case that bringing Metro Ethernet into a new building can cause a big dent in your wallet, bringing the connection to a suite or offices within that building does not have to. Metro Ethernet or gigabit Internet may provide you with high-speed access to The Internet in thirty days or less, depending on availability.
Does your company host its own servers running websites, APIs or data feeds for other offices or companies outside of your own four walls? Do fifty or so branch offices need access to a hosted application at your company headquarters? Are you a retail company hosting the POS system for thousands of chain stores? Are you a legal practice hosting the data for three sites?
If you host programs, data or information centrally, people outside of the central location need to have access. People can’t work if you have no Internet connection. Are you choosing an intranet solution that is sufficiently reliable and stable to support multiple simultaneous connections from varied sites?
For a single office surfing the web, a cable modem or inexpensive 10 Meg circuit may be adequate. High-speed dedicated circuits, Metro Ethernet or gigabit Ethernet are advisable for company headquarters. High speed is important but they also must be able to support multiple distinct connections. A cable modem would likely be insufficient.
Bringing in a cable modem, which seems to save money, may actually come at a price. You may have to share bandwidth in order to secure that low monthly rate. During peak hours, your connection may slow down, even though you subscribe to a cable modem with a thirty-megabyte connection. Cable operators differ but many have prescribed limits on the bandwidth amount that they can deliver within a set community. That bandwidth branches off to different buildings and then to various tenants within those buildings. During crucial working hours, you may not get to the 30-meg speed you have been capped at. Is this a problem for you if you expect 30 and get 6?
Some providers are available who offer dedicated bandwidth and guaranteed bandwidth. In this situation, you do not have to share bandwidth. The bandwidth is all yours and is fully allocated to the needs of your organization. Regardless of other tenants in your building or neighboring buildings, you should receive the full capacity of your circuit.
With Metro Ethernet, for example, you can receive a guaranteed bandwidth in various increments including 5 and 10 Meg circuits, and 50 and 100 Meg circuits. In your office out to the internet you can reach gigabit speeds with gigabit providers
Here, carriers deliver enough high-speed to the building, so that it can be split among various tenants. The carrier has the right amount so that everyone gets the contracted speed that has been promised.
Circuits can go down in Jeffersonville, Indiana even though certain carriers offer superior Internet bandwidth products. What can you do to minimize the chance that you will experience an outage of some kind?
Try using redundant circuits.
Essentially, there are two different ways to look at redundancy.
The first kind of redundancy exists when one carrier provides one customer with many circuits. When there are problems with a physical line or a port or other failures, it can be helpful to have redundant circuits. However, if that carrier has a greater outage to your entire region or there is a line damaged outside of your office building, you may have both or all circuits go down. This offers some protection and assurance but does not eliminate all threats.
The other type of redundancy requires you to utilize circuits from different providers. You may want your circuits to appear and act as if they are one and come from the same source. If so you can use IP address allocations and advanced routers to do so. However, despite appearances, they are actually very much separate and are redundant to each other. Diversity redundancy, as this is called, offers you more protection that you might realize. You will still have a live, fully functioning carrier if one fails.
You should look for redundant circuits from carriers in Jeffersonville, Indiana that do not have the same physical geographic pathways, in order to get the most redundancy. This means that you should try to have the circuits come into you building from different sides. The circuits would be attached to telephone poles (or underground conduits) in different directions leading to different data centers or central offices. If a major accident occurs or there is a fire that impedes the function of circuits in a particular region, you have redundancy in a different direction.
It is true that Internet access costs you money. However, the cost does not come close to what you will pay if the access that is not reliable. Please consider these situations:
Is your business on a cable modem? How many other tenants is your carrier servicing in your building? Are 14 other offices getting circuits? Between 9 and 5, any of those other offices could be downloading huge files, streaming video or taking large volume of phone calls and more. How will your telephone calls be affected as the amount of available bandwidth decreases? What happens to the quality of that phone call? Maybe calls will randomly drop? Will you sound muffled?
Regardless of whether you are part of a legal practice and your firm does file sharing, or an accounting practice sharing databases, your office is the central point or hub of your business. Whether you have 2 sites, 250, or 2000, they all count on your primary Internet connection to retrieve data and information. What if your circuit fails? Would it annoy you or destroy you? Are remote offices able to work at all? Take new orders? Service existing ones? Share information? It is important that prior to choosing a solution, you understand the true needs and requirements of your particular company. You might have hundreds and hundreds of loyal customers. Perhaps you are a software company running a hosted solution they all count on. Do you operate a service where other systems speak with yours by using an application program interface (API)? For example do other systems gain access to yours in order to calculate prices, prices, or to collect information that you serve up? It is possible they will not be able to connect to your servers. How long will your customers tolerate repeated outages?
Maybe your business depends entirely on the web. Should your circuits go down, your representatives cannot make outbound calls. Your representatives would also be unable to answer calls. Basically, you are out of business. Is redundancy enough? Many of the finest call centers with the best reputations already understand and use redundancy. They should consider if they have sufficient protection. Are your current carriers as dependable as you would like? Is the quality of your calls consistently and reliably clear?
You clearly have many options. Your company needs and your budget will have to come into consideration when deciding on your solutions. As a wrap-up:
A single fifty, ten or five megabyte access to The web circuit may be sufficient to meet the needs of your small organization, particularly if you have only one location and are not worried about redundancy. Metro Ethernet service or gigabit service may also be a reasonably priced option if you are in a lit building. Costs vary with location and the availability of circuits so speak with our engineers. Together, we can find the best option for you and your business.
You have a midsized company in Jeffersonville; you will surely need higher-speed Internet. You have several choices. Consider the following: Gigabit Internet, Metro Ethernet or higher-speed Internet access circuits. Using different circuits and different carriers will, if you choose, provide you with redundancy. But can you do this without doubling costs? Sometimes, yes. For example, choosing two 50 meg circuits versus one 100 meg circuit. Again, costs vary. Availability also varies. Your specific location will determine what options you have. Please speak with one of our experts to find out what those are and how we can meet your needs.
The greatest risk of failure belongs to companies that have multiple places of company or offices. They require redundant circuits. Different carriers are desirable. Additionally, you should consider redundant equipment (routers and switches) in your facility to minimize the risk of downtime. Look at all of your options: Ethernet access services, gigabit Internet providers, Metro Ethernet providers and other high-speed circuit providers. Your company can benefit from finding the right mix of services and carriers.
Gigabit Internet circuits, point-to-point high-speed Internet circuits are essential and Metro Ethernet Internet circuits must be utilized by companies in any of these categories. You will want to have the greatest protection of your uptime. To accomplish this you must have redundancy: redundant circuits from multiple providers and redundant hardware for your system. You do not want any slowdowns or interruptions that often occur during spikes in usage. Avoid this by having sufficient bandwidth. Be sure to have the right circuits and hardware. They both must be able to support multiple, fast, concurrent connections.
Do not risk having failing circuits or not enough bandwidth. It is imperative that the circuit or circuits you choose meet your needs but also keep you within your allowable budget. Choosing the right combination of hardware and circuits can be complicated and confusing.
Our engineers will take the pressure off and develop a free action plan for you by analyzing your needs. Our experts will examine your current usage and demand. We will then generate a design that gives you the resources you need while keeping your business up and running at a reasonable cost.
If you would like to arrange for an assessment, please click here to complete the contact information form to the right. You can call our office as well. Assessments are done in as few as two days or within 48 hours.